This is a truly neat mashup. Mario Crossover re-creates the original Mario in Flash with the ability to play as not only Mario but as a bunch of other classic NES characters. This killer list of NES heroes includes, Simon (Castlevania), Samus (Metroid), Megaman (Megaman), Bill R (Contra), and Link (Best game series ever). It is some serious fun and lovely re-created. It even has the hidden warp tubes at the end of level 1-2. As some cheesy waitress at Applebees would say, enjoy!

If we actually read all the terms of service, terms and conditions, and all those other words written in lawyer-speak then we wouldn’t have any time to do anything else; nevermind actually interacting with anything we’re reading the terms for.

As a fantastic April Fool’s prank, UK retailer GameStation took advantage of this fact to collect gamer’s souls. Yes, you read that correctly. They inserted an “Immortal Soul Clause” into their terms of its online game sales. More soul stealing details after the break.

“By placing an order via this web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul,” the terms and conditions read. “Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorized minions. We reserve the right to serve such notice in 6 (six) foot high letters of fire, however we can accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by such an act.”

88 percent of customers didn’t read these terms and conditions and therefore forfeited their souls. Only 12 percent actually noticed and saw the opt-out option, which included a voucher for £5 – roughly $7.75 – off the price of their purchase. More than 7500 customers missed out on the offer and are now beholden to GameStation for all eternity.

Management claims they aren’t actually interested in the gamers souls so they’ll be issuing an email to customers nullifying that part of the contract.

via the escapist

Everyone knows a Dan the Man… Some deserve the name, some get it only because it rhymes. In this story, Dan shows us what life is like after the princess is rescued. Morals of the story include, ‘its hard to get a one-up on life’ and ‘don’t waste your extra life’. Please, watch and you will enjoy.

So, there is a wonderful site called, Hawtness: the Women of WTF? I have to say, as a geek, it holds so many beautiful bits of media (that show beautiful bits). Seriously, it is a spank bank for the ages. Check out the gallery after the jump and wank for yourself… I mean, be the judge of wankability.. or.. nevermind, I’m just going to go spend a few minutes alone. You’ll know what I mean soon.

This game is too fun not to post. I don’t know whether its the colourful colours, the quick, addictive gameplay, or the gay pop music that makes it so great… All I know is that you have anything even vaguely important today, do not click this link. If you need to go grocery shopping, go to work or attend a funeral, for your own good, don’t attempt to break my high score of 43012.

For your retro fix today, we have modern games that would have sucked on Atari 2600. Games were so much simpler then. More complicated pieces of games weren’t needed. Plot, character development, and colours weren’t needed to create a wonderful game and entertain the masses. Apparently, this still applies.

My pants are drenched from wetting myself upon reading this very short blog post announcing that Portal 2 will be shipping this holiday season. Since my birthday is around that time, this makes it even more exciting. Imagine the cake that will be had!

Plus, who knows where they’ll take the series. No matter what, it’ll be an epic multi-dimensional explosion of awesome.

We can only hope, wait and eat cake.

via Steam

This retro, open source, buzz word friendly clock is pretty wicked. Monochron, by adafruit industries, is crafty adaptation of Pong for use as a clock in which the computer plays against itself and “loses” to change the time. This is creative way to keep computers/robots busy; otherwise they’ll take over the world.

They say it takes about 2 to 3 hours to make, with a cursory knowledge of soldering and some hand tools. They sell all the stuff for this and other cool projects on their site. If you’re looking to get into basic circuitry, this could be a good place for you to start.

In a larger context, pickling, the ancient art of preserving food by fermentation, came way before anything sonic related. In this case, I think Sega’s Sonic The Hedgehog came before this odd spiky green fellow but, then again, I have been wrong once before, this could (unlikely) make twice. Hey, interesting fact. Sonic hedgehog homolog (SHH) is a gene named after our famous friend. You are now smarter than you’ve ever been; congratulations!

via destructoid

These images are absolutely beautiful. They remind me of being a kid. That feeling of being swept away into a magic world and all that gaps that our imaginations filled in betwen those 8 or 16 bits of pure glory.